


Five, Ten, Fifteen

by Amalia Kensington (amaliak01)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, THG: Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaliak01/pseuds/Amalia%20Kensington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He begged her for years. It's the only thing he really ever asked of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Five

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted on my livejournal in Oct, 2011.

  
  
I don't like to wander into the woods alone too much. It's often too quiet, the sounds that had once soothed me now are ominous and danger could be at any turn. I can't feel completely at ease without a weapon. Another gift from the arena.  
  
Peeta doesn't like it much either, but has set in his mind that he needs to find the good in it to replace the bad memories that still haunt both of us. I admire his hope in the idea that we can forget.  
  
A mockingjay calls just outside the clearing we're in deep in the woods, breaking my reverie from my place tucked into Peeta's body as we lie together in the grass in the quickly fading summer light. I think of Rue's four note song and carefully stand up, being sure not to wake him from his nap.  
  
I step to the edge of the trees, softly calling up Rue's song to the mockingjay as an offering. It was quiet for a long while. I return to Peeta's side, holding my knees to my chest, thinking that the mockingjay hadn't heard me. I try to muster up relief.  
  
"Katniss?" Peeta's voice was rough with sleep, blue eyes blinking it away.  
  
"Hi," I smiled at him.  
  
Just then, the song, Rue's song, burst in the sky above us, a single mockingjay fluttering from one tree to another, black feathers glistening in the sunlight. Another sounded and soon, I could hear it traveling away from us, deeper into the woods while it evolved with a mixture of other motes that suited the birds' whim.  
  
"I forget how truly beautiful that is," Peeta says softly, sitting up beside me now, his face turned towards the sky. "It reminds me of how you sing."  
  
I hadn't sung in years.  
  
His face turns towards me, giving me a warm smile and something pulls at me, making me lean towards him. I've started getting used to not resisting it.  
  
I press my lips to his, slowly and lazily kissing him. It's become one of my favorite things to do, finally accepting in my own mind that there's something really comforting about the way that it made me feel special somehow. Gone were the touching of lips we'd done in the arenas, dead and limp by comparison. They were replaced by a living thing between us, breathing and stirring things in deep buried places that I hadn't realized could still exist after everything we'd both been through.  
  
Peeta had laid me down on the grass, hands sliding over me as his lips moved from mine down to my neck. He was taking his time, exploring as I slid my hands into his hair. This was something we were starting to get used to, after years of sharing a bed, admitting what we felt for each other and being very physical about our demonstrations...the idea that we could be comfortable enough to touch each other like this at any time we wished without waiting for the other person to give a signal...well, it was a bit of a novelty still and we were taking advantage of it.  
  
Another more recent novelty was the facial hair that Peeta had finally started to grow two weeks ago. It was light and a bit patchy but I loved the way it made his face seem almost roguish and that it tickled in all the right places and it was just so _normal_ , such a sign of life moving on (my prep team would have been gratified to know that due to all the skin grafts, it was impossible for me to grow any type of body hair ever again).  
  
Peeta had stopped his exploration of my body, his breath over the skin of my stomach, his hands having pushed up my shirt to expose it. His thumbs were rubbing softly up and down the skin just below my ribs and I tensed. I knew what was coming.  
  
He bent down and kissed my stomach, moving down slowly to stop on my abdomen, right where the line of pants began. I raised my eyes to the sky, nothing that soon we would have to start heading back home. Maybe today he wouldn't do this.  
  
"Katniss."  
  
His breath was warm over my skin and even though I cringed, I smoothed down the hair on his head, brining my eyes down to him again. He didn't look at me, just pressed his forehead against my abdomen.  
  
"Please," he said, the stubble on his chin brushing my skin.  
  
The sound of his voice, so small and broken and so...desperate. I had been expecting a long, pleading speech that would ultimately end in a real fight, like we'd already had at least twice over the last few months about the same thing.  
  
Not this quiet begging. Tears filled my eyes and I felt the "yes" bubbling in my throat, just so he would never sound like that ever again.  
  
But in right then, just at the tree line where I'd sang it, Rue's four note song came floating back to me, reminding me of why I couldn't say yes, why what he was asking me was still unthinkable.  
  
I could _not_ have children. Not while everything still made me afraid, not in a world where my nightmares were still so close to the surface there were days I couldn't even function. I knew what it was like to have a mother that would shut down like that, and it wasn't about to happen to any child of mine.  
  
I sat up, pushing his shoulders back until I was straddling his lap, my arms around his neck.  
  
I let go of a breath I didn't realize that I had been holding when he put his arms around me.  
  
"I can't," I say into his shoulder, my throat closing around the rest of what I was going to say. I wait for him to push me away.  
  
He doesn't.  
  
I need to stop expecting him to.  
  
"Okay."  
  
He sighs heavily and my heart tights for him again. He wasn't asking for us to have kids right away, just for me to open to the possibility of soon. It was what he desperately wanted, but here he was, accepting that I couldn't. I really didn't deserve him.  
  
Which is why I felt the need to give him hope.  
  
I pull back a bit, placing my hands on either side of his face. His eyes are cast down and I kiss his lips softly.  
  
"Ask me again," I tell him and his eyes jump to mine, bright and blue. "Not today," I hurry to clarify. "Not...any time soon, just... _someday_ , maybe. Ask me again."  
  
He nods his understanding, slipping his hands under my shirt again, tracing circles on my back as he kisses me oh so softly.  
  
It will be dark soon.


	2. Ten

I knew it was a bad idea as soon as Delly had suggested it. But there was nothing to stop her from coming with her brood of three into our home, nothing to stop the sounds of games and laughter from bouncing off the walls. There was nothing to stop Delly for placing her 8 month old daughter into Peeta’s arms and for him to melt in a way that made me feel the tiniest bit envious.  
  
There was a bit of panic that bubbled up when he looked over at me, excitement and wonder on his features (there still weren’t many small children in Twelve, not after the epidemic of three years ago) and my heart constricted for him.   
  
He hadn’t brought it up again in nearly five years, but sometimes I could see it on the tip of his tongue, deep in his eyes when he’s hovered over me in the dark, when I catch him drawing sketches of faces that are both familiar and foreign.   
  
My nightmares are ever the same, my constant tormentors that I can’t seem to shake. More often now, it’s my children in the arena, facing the Capitol children that I’d said should be there, a boy my gray eyes and Peeta’s blonde hair and a little girl that looked just like Prim. Sometimes they were surrounded by white roses and I’d wake up with the smell in my nostrils and the scream trapped in my throat.   
  
Peeta would hold me as always and now I can actually talk to him about what I see, the things that haunt me (really, that haunted both of us). That’s probably why he never actually asked me again.  
  
Until now. Now when there was a real and solid child in his arms, asleep and drooling on his shoulder. Delly is chattering on about how much better things are and how finally there seems to be a real calm around everyone in Panem. She’s gushing about the wonderful world that her kids can grow up in. I bite my tongue and smile politely. Peeta gives me a sidelong glance, reaching to squeeze my hand for a moment before adjusting the child in his arms. He doesn’t say anything either.  
  
Delly goes home after a week and I take Peeta by the hand into our bedroom and do everything I can to make sure that he won’t want to talk tonight. Or the next night or the next. I know that he’s caught on to what I’m doing, but decides not to call me on it this time.   
  
Of course, like many of my plans, this one backfires on me.   
  
Because after ten years, I’ve learned to read him as well as he reads me.   
  
He’s begging me again now, not just the subtle hints I’d get from him sometimes, but it’s in everything he does now: in the cheese buns he’ll bake for me, in the way he’ll hold my hips almost reverently, in the tone of his voice whenever he says the word “please”.   
  
I stand in our home, the sounds of summer June bugs floating in the garden as the sun sets providing the soundtrack for my thoughts.  
  
What am I going to do?  
  
The sunlight is slipping away faster and faster, the orange glow of the sky compels me to move. With a sigh, I step out into the street, my feet taking me towards town where Peeta is at the bakery. He’s been helping the new baker and his apprentice with cakes, spending most of the day there, coming home with sugar in odd places I’ve been all to glad to discover. All too quickly, I’ve arrived, not bothering with the front door since at the bakery is closed by this hour and make my way inside through the unlocked backdoor.   
  
I catch sight of him as I stand in the shadow of the doorway, getting the chance to observe him before he sees me. He’s crouching down in front of a three tiered marble cake, a bag of frosting in his hands, giving quiet instructions to the baker’s apprentice, a lanky fifteen year old that had come from Eleven. Peeta is demonstrating what he’s talking about and I can’t help but smile. He’s always had a way with words and the patience to teach others and I’m sure as anything that he’d be a wonderful father.  
  
I start with the realization that he _deserves_ to be a father. He deserves to have everything he could ever want.  
  
Selfishly, I can’t do it. I don’t think I’m emotionally prepared for this. I can’t give him what he wants.  
  
I don’t know how, but I’m outside now, tears streaming down my face. The few passers-by that catch sight of me politely look away (they’ve all come to give me and the other Victors a fairly wide breadth of understanding about emotional breakdowns).   
  
I can’t do this, this cannot be my life. I can’t be this despicable of a human being. The weight on my chest is unbearable and for the first time in years my instinct to run, just _run_ and never look back is overwhelming.   
  
My mind is reeling and my feet have taken me to the Meadow and the fence that I had often considered as the gate to freedom. But how can I be free when what I want to do is run away from myself? I still listen for the non-existent electric current before leaning against it, sobbing uncontrollably now.   
  
My tears have dried by the time he found me, crumpled on the ground in the dark, completely drained of everything.  
  
I saw panic in his eyes and I felt instantly guilty because he had no idea what was wrong or any idea how to fix it.   
  
“Do _not_ do that again,” he told me, this voice rough and pained. My head was fuzzy.  
  
 _Run._  
  
Peeta had kneeled beside me, his hands on my shoulders and I wanted to cling to him, to selfishly keep taking from his strength.   
  
_For his own good. **Run.**_  
  
“Stop it, Katniss,” he said then, giving me a slight shake, as if to snap me out of my thoughts. His voice was harder than I’d heard it in a long time. “Don’t you dare even think about leaving.”  
  
He’d read my mind, as usual. Damn him.  
  
“You deserve...” I began, my voice broken, but he quickly interrupted.   
  
“How long will it take, Katniss?” he snapped, real anger and frustration on his features. “How long before you finally understand that I want _you_? That you’re all I’ve ever wanted, that I’ve been fighting for you ever since that first Reaping Day. That you’re the one thing I really do deserve to have.”  
  
He shook me again for emphasis and I felt completely pathetic. His gaze softened a bit and he let out a heavy sigh before gathering me to his chest. I felt one of his tears trickle onto my face. “I told you,” he whispering into my hair. “I told you that life doesn’t mean anything without you.”  
  
I let him lead me home, curled myself into him on our bed, my hand resting over the steady beat of his heart.   
  
“I’ll stay with you,” I promise him quietly.  
  
He holds me tighter.  
  
It’s starting to get cold.


	3. Fifteen

I couldn't even really say when it started.  
  
I hadn't sung in years, not really. But one day, I was in the yard, pulling up weeds from the melon patch when I started humming a tune, something light without any structure.   
  
Later, Peeta nearly choked on his breakfast when I shuffled into the kitchen singing the catchy chorus of one of the new songs coming over the Panem radio that Greasy Sae liked to listen to sometimes.   
  
Pretty soon, I was doing it all the time, humming or singing something or other around the house. It made Peeta grin in a way that made him seem younger, even with that scruffy beard he'd gotten into the habit of wearing (I liked it, even though I asked him every day to shave it). Sometimes, he'd try to join me, and it almost always ended with the two of us on the floor gasping with laughter at just how off key he was and at the ridiculous lyrics we'd make up for the bits of songs we didn't remember.   
  
Haymitch caught us at this once and mentioned brusquely that we were crazy to be behaving like that while sober. And to stay away from his geese. Peeta responded by singing a verse in his honor and I blew him a kiss. Haymitch's responding glare had us laughing even harder.  
  
The other thing that had started were the dreams. I'd had "dreams" before, things that were mostly bright colors and ethereal shapes with soft sounds replacing the nightmares that had hadn't actually stopped entirely but had simply become less frequent. But now, I was starting to really dream.  
  
Mostly, I dreamt of the past; of my father and the lake, the quiet calm of hunting alone, my mother's hands as she combed my hair. I dreamt of Lady and of Prim giggling with Buttercup in her lap. I also dreamt of things that had never happened; of five year old Peeta helping me make mud pies, of Madge's wedding dress, of Cinna and Portia designing the layout of my garden. I dreamt of teaching Rue to swim out in the lake, just as my father had taught me. We laughed and giggled and she held me tight, smiling like someone far older while she told me that it was all okay to admit what I want.   
  
Dr. Aurelius tells me that sometimes dreams are a way for our subconscious to talk to us, a way to work things out. Maybe this was a sign that I was finally ready to see what was good about life, ready to move forward into something not defined by the past.  
  
But the question was: what did I really want?  
  
I had been thinking about it for days now, to the point of complete distraction. I'm standing in the kitchen when look over at Peeta, who is carefully tasting the sauce that he's making, wincing a bit before looking around for something else to add to it. He pauses when he catches me staring, glancing at the half-sliced carrot in my hands. His face grows curious as I continue to stare. "Katniss?"   
  
"Ask me again," I hear myself say.  
  
He's frozen in place, not a single readable thing going across his face.   
  
I know what I want now. I can't say that I'm that surprised when I realize that it's what I've wanted for a long time.   
  
I feel a smile begin to form. "You asked me once, when I wasn't ready," I say, discarding the carrot and cutting knife on the counter and stepping closer to him. I place my hand on his chest where I can feel his heartbeat quickening. "Ask me again now."  
  
He lets out a strangled sound, something between a laugh and a cry but his face is absolutely beaming. He's ecstatic. I'm finally catching up.  
  
He kisses me, hard, everything else in the world is forgotten as he presses me up against the counter. I laugh a bit, the feeling of giddiness rising up inside me and for once I don't feel the need to push it down. He's kissing his way down my body, light and playful until he's kneeling before me, both of his hands on either side of my hips and his forehead pressed against my abdomen like he'd done once almost ten year ago.  
  
I run my fingers through his hair, smoothing down the mess of curls as he looks up at me. "Aren't you going to actually ask?" I tease him, giving him the best scowl of indignation I can muster around the grin that just won't leave my face.  
  
He schools his face into complete seriousness and clears his throat. "Katniss Everdeen." His voice actually catches in his throat for a moment, and I can feel the lump forming in mine.  
  
"Will you marry me?"  
  
Peeta always did know how to say the exact thing that I was least expecting.  
  
We'd been living together for fifteen years and never once in all that time had he ever actually mentioned marriage. After the farce that that had happened with the Capitol and his hijacking, I had always assumed that we'd come to an understanding that engagements and formal ceremonies weren't for us. We belonged to each other. It was never a question.   
  
"W-what?" I hear myself stutter once I can actually form words again.  
  
"It's something I've asked you before," he explains from his position before me, his eyes intense. "You weren't ready then. Hell, I wasn't ready then either and it was all wrong. So...I'm asking you again, now. Will you marry me, Katniss?"  
  
I understand what he means. If we're going to do this...if we're going to start a family, it's going to be right.  
  
I kneel down with him, taking his hands and holding his eyes with mine. "Peeta Mellark, I want be your wife. I want to have your children. I will love you for as long as I'm still breathing. I will always be with you."  
  
Sometimes, I have a way with words too.  
  
He's crushing me to him now and I'm holding onto him just as tightly. From this moment forward, we're starting anew, everything we do will serve a purpose. We're going to change our lives completely and permenantly and for once it's completely under our control.  
  
We're going to do this right.  
  
Suddenly, Peeta pulls back and holds me at arms length, peering into my face. "Wait, Katniss. You said... _children_. As in...more than one." He bites his lip like he does when he's unsure. "Real or not real?"  
  
I feel my heart lighten because for the first time in a long time, I can give him hope. "Real."  
  
The days are starting to get longer.  
  
 **THE END**


End file.
